Find an article that relates in some way to the things we have been talking about in class. Summarize the article, then respond to it in some way. Agree, disagree, or other. Why did you pick it? How does it connect to our class?
Include a link to the text. Should be about 250 words in length.
Some things we have talked about:
- Critical Thinking
- Rhetoric
- Ethos, Logos, Pathos
- Egocentric Thinking
- Ignorance
- Bias
- Integrity
- Hypocrisy
- Writing Process
- Research
- Population Control
- 2BR02B
- Problems/Solutions
- Decisions and Repercussions
Professor Ramos' Blog 
Fashion designer Kate Spade was discovered dead this week in an apparent suicide. We are now seeing reports that Spade, 55, struggled with depression and possible mental illness her entire life. Spade left behind a thirteen year old daughter and a husband. According to multiple news outlets Spade’s relationship with her husband had been rocky in recent years with the couple actually living separately and it is now being alleged that Spade’s husband was seeking a divorce. This article specifically covers what we know thus far about the letter Spade left behind addressed to her thirteen year old daughter. The shocking statement being released for public view reads, “I have always loved you. This is not your fault. Ask Daddy!”
I choose to write about this article and news headlines because it is shocking that in today’s world suicide is a familiar story that we have actually become desensitized to due to commonality. We see countless stories of people faced with a problem of self hatred or depression choosing the solution of suicide. My feelings regarding Spade’s suicide may seem insensitive or even offensive. I have no experience as a business mogul, a woman, a fashion designer, a wife, or as a parent. I do however have past experience with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. Everyone’s journey is completely different and the choices they make and how they reach said choices is theirs and theirs only. It seems as though suicide attempts and completions can be looked at as a cause and an effect. In my mind Spade imagined everything in her life would be better without her, including her daughter, so she made the decision to end her life. In my mind this is a hard situation for me to understand. I couldn’t imagine having a child and dealing with the various demons of depression. I feel like the responsibility of a child’s life and how my decision to end my life would effect that child would be more than enough cause to seek help. Then again I am not in that situation so I have no business passing judgment or assumption. It was also reported that Spade chose not to seek help many times because if it got out that she dealt with these issues it would be bad for the brand’s image. Hearing this almost makes me angry at the amount of selfishness and poor reasoning behind that excuse. The bottom line is that mental health is so important and I am sure there are plenty of people who are fathers and mothers dealing with the same or similar issues. It should be stressed that even when you don’t want to seek help you should for your children’s sake.
I thought about the irony in this headline as it pertains to our studies and discussions this week. We have Spade’s story, one we have heard before, a suicide which effects will negatively alter a child’s life forever. In the same day we are assigned to read 2BR02B, a story of suicide that actually gives a child life.
Link: http://www.businessinsider.com/kate-spade-husband-on-suicide-note-2018-6
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/09/15/public-ignorance-about-the-constitution/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a6827981ac9e
The article above addresses an interesting concern that I had little knowledge about. According to the surveys that were taken for this article, very little people are aware of their rights as an american, particularly those unalienable rights written in the constitution. Only one in four people could name the three branches of government and only one in three could name just one branch of government, according to the survey. I believe this problem could possibly be attributed to a lack of education in our society. It seems rational that the masses should have access to the knowledge of their fundamental, unalienable rights. Without the knowledge of these rights, politicians can take advantage of the majority easily. In fact, some would argue that politicians have and continue to take advantage of the populace via their ignorance of our government. This issue should be given more attention as it demonstrates the ignorance of the general american population. This relates to this week’s lessons by talking about ignorance. So many issues arise because of ignorance and not many people can recognize the real value of education. Its a real issue, especially when it come to what we need to know.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44367981
The article I chose is entitled “Saudi Arabia Issues First Driving License to Women” by BBC News. It explains that in Saudi Arabia, for the first time in decades, 10 women were issued a Saudi drivers license. The official ban will be lifted on June 24, allowing women to have their own country’s drivers license. Most women either have to call/hire private drivers, or gone so far as getting foreign licenses. Prince Mohammed bin Salma’s hope is to modernize some things for his country. The women that are able to have this new found freedom, of being able to drive, are still having to follow strict guidelines in order to receive this new privilege. Women have to adhere to strict dress codes, must not associate with unrelated men, and if they want to travel, work, or access healthcare, they must be accompanied by-or receive written permission from – a male guardian, writes BBC News. They also state that women must have a male’s permission to receive a Saudi Arabian drivers license.
The feminist movement was in full swing during this last year and is even more on the rise this year. I don’t understand the critical thinking or integrity of the modern day feminist. I feel it’s gotten out of control in the states, we should be looking outside of our own country and standing up for women, such as standing up for women in the middle east (and in other countries) who are just now, if they can get permission from there men able, to have a drivers license. We should be marching in support of women to be able to be equal all over the world. I understand that they are under a religious state but everyone should also be able to be equal.
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http://nationalpost.com/news/world/china-may-end-birth-limits-soon-replacing-population-control-with-independent-fertility-policy
China has a large population and is known to have passed the law of only a child per household. At the time to pass the law was to prevent the increase of the population in their nation. The article states by 2019 the Chinses will allow household to have more than one child. With the law passing, other problems arise which will be deliberate as population control is questioned for other nations. China has seen different problems among men and women due to their law of one child for household. The article states by 2030 the Chinese population will consist of mostly senior men. Presently many men in China have done procedures to not have children and woman have had abortions to avoid fines from the law. And many children were left unwanted as well. These are the three big problems China is now facing.
Controlling the population by passing a law will decrease one problem and increase other problems. As seen with China the population will have no future. They are now looking for a solution to fix the mistake they made with the hope of a baby boom in 2019. Other nations should look at the problems China are now facing. The population will resolve itself if there is a problem of too many humans on the planet. There should be no law passed to control populations in any nation. Limited parents on how many children they can have is taking their human right away. The planet is mostly water and there is our solution to the limit space we have on land. That is where our solution is.
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According to this article nearly 1800 immigrant families have been separated at the U.S.-Mexico border from October 2016 until February of this year. I must admit that I’m very torn on this subject. I support Trumps effort at ending illegal immigration but I feel this is a step too far. As far as I can tell, the reason for the separation is due mainly in part to the new “zero tolerance” policy instituted in 2016 which states that all persons caught crossing the border illegally will be charged as criminals and detained. This means that if they have children with them, they are separated and taken to other facilities while their parents are detained. Once taken from their parents the children are taken to different facilities across the U.S. with some being as close as Arizona and Texas while others are as far away as Chicago.
As I stated earlier I do believe that something needs to be done about illegal immigration, however I think that this crosses a certain line. The vast majority of families crossing the border at this time are reportedly running from gang violence and drug related conflict in Central American countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. While I still don’t think they should just be allowed to enter the U.S. freely, I still think they should be kept together as a family unit and allowed to stay together or at the very least have visitation while they are processed. I’ll admit I have very little understanding of the logistics of processing and housing the refugees but I would think that as long as the U.S. has been dealing with this issue, we would having something a little more organized in place like more containment centers near the border or transferring the families together to facilities in other states instead of just the kids.
It should also be noted that not all children are accompanied by parents or adults when crossing the border and the Border Patrol has reported a number of cases in which adults falsely claimed that the kids with them were their own. As far as I can tell, however, this is not the majority of cases. This hasn’t stopped the political left from condemning the actions of Trump and the Right however. They claim the government is using the child separation policy as a deterrent to keep more immigrants from crossing the border. The government denies this of course, but it is very difficult to find data on whether or not it has had any affect. Whatever effect these policies may have had or are having , I think it is important that we approach the situation carefully. Protection of U.S. citizens should be the first priority, and technically these people have “broken the law” , but I think it’s important that we realize that these are special circumstances and we should treat them as such, with as much respect and dignity as we can. If killers and rapists on death row can be fed, clothed, and cared for day after day for years on end, I’m sure we could handle a few refugees for awhile.
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-mexico-border-families-separated-1.4698831
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The article that I have come across and chosen is an article about Kanye West due to a twitter post. In the twitter post, the NYC famous magazine hip hop organization named, “The Fader” had tweeted out, “We Listened to Ye” along with the article. The article starts off by stating Kanye’s erratic past behaviors and decisions when buying a picture of Jesus who had blue eyes and blonde hair. Prior to this, he had said that Jesus was black. It then mentioned how he actually liked how Jesus looked in the painting and the article goes on to say that his recent interaction and support of Trump had been correlated with the Jesus piece he had bought. They then go on and start to berate and correlate his new album with his erratic mistakes. Although it was supposed to be a simple review and I myself do not really like Kanye West, I don’t entirely agree with the structure of this article.
The reason I chose this article is because although this was supposed to be a simple review on his album, I believe that they had used their bias tactics when writing this article and review. The author doesn’t seem too fond of Kanye West due to the wording of her article and her bringing of irrelevant past mistakes West has made. They are using this to get their point across that Kanye West is not a good person. This reminded me of when we were mentioning in class that every single living person has their own biases and prejudices so we should not believe everything on the news or media. This article seems a bit biased against Kanye West and we should not agree just by everything we read, because the media is essentially written by people. We should use critical thinking skills and question and do some more researching when agreeing with the author of this article rather than reading everything she puts and thinking it’s all accurate.
http://www.thefader.com/2018/06/04/kanye-west-ye-review?utm_source=tftw
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https://qz.com/1295721/the-japanese-population-is-shrinking-faster-than-every-other-big-country/
Japan’s local population is on the decrease and it has been since the 1970’s. Since then, the birth rate of the Japanese people have plummeted from about two million births a year in 1970 to just under a million in 2017. At first glance it does not sound to bad since the world seems to be getting more and more populated however in Japans case their local population now has a higher death rate than birth sitting at 1.3 million deaths and just over 900 thousand babies born in 2017. Right now is the perfect time for another baby boomer generation in Japan however no one in Japan wants to have children. It’s been projected that if things don’t begin to change the local population of Japan could possibly plummet to under 100million by 2050 from 130million counted in 2017. I feel that this article relates to our class because of our recent conversation about population control. As it stands this world is getting over populated yet in some areas the birthrate is lower that the death rate. If this is to continue we may face an endangered race of humans. This of course this won’t look like a possibility for hundred or two years, but are we going to allow it to happen? For the sake of resources on this planet do we let them die off while other nations continue to grow to record numbers and continue to consume and require more resources or will we find a way to lower other populations while trying to raise others. While hopefully the situations do not swap side where suddenly the higher population is now looking at higher death to birth and the struggling population is now risking over population.
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I read the online article Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes by Chelsea Wald. The article talks about how present day people are more inpatient than they used to be. Ward states that ” Cognitive Scientist tells us, patience and impatience had an evolutionary purpose”. Due to our desires presently to have everything at warp speed our barometer are off when it comes to time. As a society we have become impatient. The article talks about a 1999 study done of 31 large cities. Researches timed unknowing people walking 60 feet. In 2000 the study was done again. Across the board walking speed increased by 10%. The more individual fit in their days, any type of delay feels like an eternity. In reality time is relative. The article states that “our experiences of time is subjective, it can fly by in a flash, or it can drag out seemingly forever”. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Ethan Ninchtern a meditation teacher concludes that practicing “meditation provideds a technique for just meeting the present moment as it is without trying to change the situation”. This article stood out to be because I often find myself caught up in being inpatient an in turn being pissed off. It’s nice to know that if I take a deep breath and let it go it could do wonders for my over health and well being.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-your-brain-hates-slowpokes-860534259
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https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/stop-taking-multivitamins
Multivitamins are the most commonly used supplements in the world. Some people believe multivitamins improve health (like losing weight or making up for poor eating habits) or even reduce the risk of chronic diseases. But what do experts say about multivitamins? Do they actually work? The article above describes how multivitamins are just a fake phenomenon in today’s society and shows some research to prove it. In one of the research, Stephan Fortman and his colleagues reviewed three trials of multivitamins and 24 trails of single paired vitamins involving 400,00 participants. There was no clear evidence that the pills reduced all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, or cancer. It also expresses different ways how multivitamins don’t work, for an example; most vitamin C are made with high-fructose corn syrup and most vitamin B from coal tar derivatives, which doesn’t make them ‘natural’ and ingesting some nasty junk or chemicals that you wouldn’t acknowledge. I agree the articles controversy for the most part. I believe you can get certain vitamins and minerals as well as approach the recommendation for daily intake from specific types of food. I do thought believe you’re experiencing a deficiency, it’s advised to take the multivitamin. The reason why I chose this article is because my sister believes ‘Women’s Multivitamins’ are alleviating to her health, while I believe you don’t need them; they can be impotent. As for one who does take multivitamins and iron pills, I admit I can live without multivitamins. Although, I do have an iron deficiency, and taking the iron pills does help me have more energy. I thought about critical thinking as some people believe multivitamins are essential to life and others don’t, which can lead to questioning and argumenting the explanation (it happened to my sister and I). Furthermore research takes place in the article.
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https://childmind.org/article/teen-suicides-risk-factors/
The article “Teen suicides: Risk Factors” emphasizes the reality that suicide rates are increasing in the recent years, essentially because us individuals are overlooking simple symptoms or signs of those potentially thinking of attempting suicide. While the difficulty is that we are stuck in a social media age where attention is desired at any given cost, including phrasal threats or posts, causing individuals to be labeled as “dramatic” or “attention seeking”. The labels become a barrier for us to become concerned with others’ personal issues, being the cause of us overlooking any risk factors that can depict that someone is struggling in life. Risk factors include serious loss of loved ones, depression or trauma, substance abuse, struggling with sexual orientation lack of social support, and the list will continue to develop in the years to come. Although suicide is a personal choice, protective factors are some solutions to help prevent anyone from taking that step. Protective factors include teaching good problem-solving abilities with kids at a young age, strong connections with loved ones, access to appropriate clinical intervention and effective care for mental and physical health. Simply, do not ignore any red flags or brush them aside for it could cause a drastic measure in someone else’s life.
I am very aware of those who throw ideals or concepts about being sad or hurt in order to receive any attention of some sort. While we cannot differentiate between an actual cry for help or a simple call for temporary loneliness of a night, always check in on those you care about. Since suicide is publicly talked about in media, along with being celebrities’ tragic endings, suicide can often be viewed as the only outlet from sadness or struggles. As we attempt to raise awareness, individuals still struggle with this personal choice due to having no support from those around them. Offering reassurance from time to time can secure anyone to know that they can attempt to confide in someone about their personal thoughts. The beginning of help is to talk, whereas the individual struggling may have a difficult time starting, but constantly reassuring that your or someone is always there to lend a hand to help them up, can cause a great impact on their life.
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This music video of ‘This Is American’ by the Childish Gambino caught my eye. It came out in May of this year. The first time I watched it looked random and didn’t really make any sense to. The music video starts if with a cheerful up beat tune and you see a man sitting in a chair playing along with a guitar. Then Gambino comes out dancing along to the song and come up behind the guitar player and then, BOOM, shoots he guy in the back of the head saying “This is America.” The tone of the song instantly changes to a darker and more serious tune. The body gets dragged away and in the background people are running around and freaking out. Some kids in what look like school uniforms come on screen and start doing a choreographed dance with Gambino. All of a sudden the song goes back to a cheerful up beat tune again, this time sung by a church choir. Everything is all nice and happy until Gambino come back on screen and BOOM, “This is America.” Gambino shoot the entire church choir. People start running around and freaking out again. You see some kids with there phones out video recording everything and the same kids in school uniforms come and start dancing again. This whole processes repeats it’s self a couple more times.
After watching a couple of time, what I ended up taking away from it is how things are in America when it comes to gun culture. It starts out as cheerfully and up beat until there’s a random tragedy and all we can really take away from it is ” well this is America, this is how it is.” Business as usual, shooting, dancing, back to business as usual. So much of media as glorified gun violence and how we react to it, that we’ve got tricked in to the loop of “this is how it is” versus looking at the problem as a whole and find out what the root causes are and how to fix them and not just put a band aid on. We need to start putting our bias aside on how we feel about guns themselves and start looking critically at what really is the problem, instead of arguing ignorantly back and forth on whether or we need to ban gun.
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The international federation of football association had a public backlash for allowing the 2018 World Cup to take place in Russia and the next one in Qatar, countries with a few human rights. For this reason, FIFA’s president Infantino created a human rights policy with the guidance of the United Nations. If there is any abuse or discrimination, FIFA claims it will intervene. This will be tested on Russia, a country that is hostile to L.G.B.T. people. In fact, this month is going to be the fifth anniversary of the anti-gay law. Russia as a host has to follow the minimum requirements during the soccer competitions.
For instance, the actions of FIFA in one way can be understood as trying to demonstrate integrity for promoting basic human rights, but also as protecting their reputation from the charges of corruption, which I agree with the author on that. The more people attend the tournament, more money for them; a common assumption.
This article increased my curiosity on the issue of L.G.B.T. people because it is popularity and controversy has increased in the last couple of years. Russia, a country that is increasingly moving towards an authoritarian government that has very conservative views on how their society should be. I disagree on the legal oppression to people by having a same-sex orientation or just be suspicious of being a gay. As far as I know, they use violence, give fines, and can hold a person to serve in prison for a few days; including foreigners. It is important for minority groups to have freedom of expression. However, I agree on the part of this law that it is not appropriate to influence kid’s minds regarding gender preferences. During the games, Russian officials might respect the requirements of FIFA, but the citizens might have a discriminatory attitude towards L.G.B.T.
In addition, the article talked about an anti-gay purge, evidence of racism and beliefs. Where Kadryvov, a Chechnya’s ruler mentioned it was to purify their blood (lineage). This could be a chaotic way of population control.
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View at Medium.com
Amazon is a largely competitive enterprise that is growing at rates too fast for other competitors like Walmart, Netflix, and grocery stores, etc. to keep up with. The author, Howard Chai, wrote “The tech conglomerate and “everything store” is strategically invading and taking over various industries and there’s no reason to expect them to stop until they rule the world.” Amazon’s ability to cut prices, take the meaning out of physically buying a book at a book store, and giving people anything they desire at their fingertips in days has made me agree with the author’s point of view. People nowadays could care less about human confrontations or the mere satisfaction of taking a relaxing shopping day for themselves that their ignorance is allowing Amazon to form a totalitarian way of life. Most people you try to take up a conversation with about such an ‘irrelevant’ problem are biased about their opinions because the world has fallen out of sync. Its normal for humans to want to be successful, and acquire resources that one needs as fast and cheap as possible all without leaving the comfort of your home, but where do we draw the line? Critical thinker, Howard Chai, proposed a solution to the problem, “I’m proposing: just don’t go to Amazon for everything. Get your avocados at Whole Foods, but don’t also get your books from Amazon. Use a Kindle, but don’t also use Amazon’s streaming service.” I believe this is a preventative and smart way to still get good deals on amazon’s inventory while not allowing small businesses, or even large ones, to be completely run down by the almighty internet superior known as Amazon. Lastly, a fun fact that the author pointed out was about the Amazon logo. In the logo, there is an arrow pointing from “A” to “Z” under the word and I believe this is not a coincidence or just a ‘smile’. I think amazon was subtly hinting that they had full intentions of taking over the world. What do you think ?
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https://trustandjustice.org/resources/intervention/implicit-bias
Implicit bias among police officers is a major problem in our society. This article talks about how these bais’ determine how an encounter can go between an officer and a person from a minority group. Many factors influence todays society and how people feel towards each other. Although racism, sexism, ageism, and religious prejudices make people feel some type of way, whether it be the officer or the person on the other side these biases can affect how a situation can play out. This article highlights the importance of strengthening police and community relationships. When trying to do that, people need to put their bias aside and realize that many of the bad situations that come out of police interactions could be easily avoided. These bad incidences happen because people let their beliefs of police get the best of them and vice versa. Once people can put aside their implicit bais’, police and minority communities won’t have such bad relationships and learn to work together. I agree with this article because police do get a bad rep. because of what goes around about them. Unfortunately, its primarily these biases make our society and police and minority groups so segregated. I picked this article because I feel strongly about how police officers are portrayed and the bad news that goes around about them, when its essentially a societal problem. Not all police officers are bad, there are those few bad apples, but the corrections of these biases could also correct so many problems for officers. This relates to our class by talking about biases, racism, sexism, and other issues we talked about. Bias is in many aspects of life, unfortunately in our justice system and our society.
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https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/19/16171966/what-happened-to-monday-review-netflix-noomi-rapace
Journal 1
After reading 2BRO2B, this reminds me of the movie “What happened to Monday.” The movie is about population control in the year 2073, where every family is allowed to have only child. Any other or unborn children are to be put into a cryo-freeze state, where they are supposedly frozen until resources are stable. This postponement with cryo-freezing the population is known as “The Child Allocation Act.” Terrance Settman, one of the co-founders of the Child Allocation Act, had seven identical girls, and did not want any of his babies cryo-frozen. Terrance decided to secretly keep all seven kids and raise them without the Bureau knowing, which was the agency responsible for overlooking the Child Allocation Act. Each girl was named after a day of the week, Sunday through Saturday, and were only allowed to leave their home on the day assigned by their name. If it was the day Monday, then the character Monday would go outside and experience the world. On Tuesday, the daughter Tuesday would be able to go out to the world and so on, so forth. All the girls are identical but have very different personalities. When each of the girls go outside, the girls have to display only one identity, which is Karen Settman. They all must act the same and know exactly what went on each day by reporting to the subsequent sister. One day however, Monday did not come home for their nightly meeting. They soon found out that the Child Allocation Act Bureau was on to them. The Bureau did not want the world to know that there were seven Settmans that were alive and healthy for so many years. Thus, they isolated the situation and hunted each girl day by day until there was only one Karen Settman left. One of the survivors eventually found out that the Bureau actually killed all the children who were sent to be cryo-frozen. After obtaining this knowledge, the last Karen Settman made it her obligation to expose the truth for everyone to know.
I agree that we do need to have population control but not in an inhumane way as 2BRO2B or What Happened to Monday. If we do not take advantage of population control now, then we may eventually run out of resources. There are many resources already set in place that promote population control, such as birth control. However, if we are not educated on how to utilize available resources, then we cannot make logical decisions. I believe that if we have some sort of structure, many organizations will benefit, such as welfare, education, and poverty. We will be able to give proper education to children instead of having school budget cuts. People will be able to take care of their own families instead of depending on the welfare system. With proper education, individuals will have higher quality knowledge and opportunities to hold decent jobs to avoid poverty.
Thus, with a solid foundation, our nation will have a better future and civilized. This relates to this week’s topic because some people are ignorant and do not see the bigger picture of how population control plays a big role in today’s society. Ultimately, there would be a domino effect upon which ignorance leads to irresponsible decisions, such as population control, and create a downhill spiral for future generations.
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/futurism.com/china-has-officially-started-construction-on-the-worlds-first-forest-city/amp/
This article is about China’s innovative plans to build a “Forest City” in an attempt to alleviate some of the air pollution. With millions of plants and trees, the city could produce huge amounts of oxygen annually and also absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide. This idea is a potential solution to the increasing destruction of climate and air quality that we as a planet face. I agree that this is a viable and smart solution to combat the environmental impending doom.
One of the biggest threats to our environment is human overpopulation. We consume the Earth’s natural resources, we destroy land to build concrete jungles, and we pour harmful chemicals into our atmosphere. With more humans, comes more environmental damage. Unfortunately, if we focus our energy to finding a solution to human overpopulation, it would take many years for any noticeable difference to occur; and we would still be dealing with the adverse effects it has on our environment. I think that instead prioritizing efforts towards the environmental crisis is a smart idea because it would wield timely results. We as a race enjoy developing land, and in the process we destroy millions of trees and other plants beneficial to our ecosystem. Reincorporating that life into these concrete jungles would not only benefit the (too) many humans on this planet, but Earth as a whole. I would hope that this idea catches on to cities worldwide, so we can slowly start rebuilding our atmosphere and healing our environment.
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Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain has been found dead at age 61. In the news article, “Anthony Bourdain laid it all on the table — our food and our humanity” Maura Judkis writes about Anthony Bourdain’s legacy, his travels, and experiences. In summary, Mr. Bourdain was a famous chef that traveled the world and explored the places that no one would expect to go. Bourdain was open minded down to earth person curious about food and culture. He wanted to experience first hand and get a new perspective on people’s lives around the globe. The author about his legacy stating that In short “People should strive to understand one another’s stories and cultures. And the best way to do that was over a meal”.
First off, I chose this article because it relates to how everyone should be open minded exercise critical thinking and stray away from being biased. Nowadays more people are doing more stupid things. Their minds are tainted with thinking that they are the best and whatever they do is the best. For example, Drinking while driving, cutting off meaningful relationships, and many more things. They act now think later. This becomes especially dangerous when it comes to politics, they bandwagon with the majority not even exercising the slightest amount of critical thinking. I very much agree with Anthony Bourdain’s legacy. Anthony Bourdain used himself to become a figure of exploring the unknown. To think for yourself and understand one another. To inspire curiosity in the American culture.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2018/06/09/anthony-bourdain-laid-it-all-on-the-table-our-food-and-our-humanity/?utm_term=.7183e97269f7
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/06/10/an-indiana-educator-survived-the-mass-shooting-in-las-vegas-and-then-a-shooting-at-her-school/?utm_term=.048e3a5c525c
Indiana middle school teacher, Shelly Alexander, was a survivor of not only the Las Vegas mass shooting but also the shooting at Noblesville West Middle School where she worked. This article talks about how after being present at the Las Vegas shooting (October 1, 2017), Shelly dealt with a lot of trauma and anxiety. She attended counseling and struggled with the constant battle against loud sudden noises and worked hard to convince herself that she was not in danger anymore. On the morning of May 25, 2018 all the hard work and progress she had made was about to be tested and possibly torn down. An active shooter was on the lose on school grounds and her life was in grave danger once again. Author Cleve R. Wootson Jr. describes how Alexander showed great integrity and strength that day because instead of dropping down to her knees and ducking for cover, she stood up and took a stand to protect her students. She locked up the classroom and directed her students to follow protocol.
In my opinion, Shelly Alexander is a hero. She knew the danger she was facing, danger that no one should ever have to endure, let alone twice! But instead of doing what every bone in her body was screaming at her to do, Alexander put aside her own fears and made sure those children stayed safe. In class we spoke about integrity, decisions/ repercussions, and problems/solutions. I believe that this article links to all of these topics.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/06/06/utter-chaos-ice-arrests-114-workers-in-immigration-raid-at-ohio-gardening-company/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4cd80526a052
This article is regarding a major raid conducted by ICE agents arresting over a hundred suspected illegal immigrants. On June 5, 2018 ICE raided two businesses in Ohio, arresting various employees suspected of working illegally in the country. This comes to show the hypocrisy of President Trump’s immigration policies. He originally stated that his focus was to deport criminals and gang members yet ICE is arresting and deporting migrant workers, which in my opinion, are less of a threat to American society than criminals and gang members. These are people that have come to the United States risking their lives in search for a better life. ICE’s director Thomas D. Homan justified the raids by stating, “the aggressive efforts, are meant to deter people from entering the country illegally and protect jobs for American workers.” The only irony to this statement is as stated in the article; Ohio suffers from a lack of laborers and are dependent on migrant workers to fill the quota. As stated, the “Ohio Landscape Association wrote …about a labor shortage affecting the green industry in Ohio and beyond. ‘There is not a large enough workforce to fill our seasonal positions,’ the organization wrote. “We need congress to pass legislation to provide more Visas now. The additional 15,000 Visas being issued does not meet the need.” Furthermore, the deportation of migrant workers creates another issue; the separation of families. Many of these workers provide for their families, deportation results in a lack of financial support and an increase of unaccompanied minors. This exemplifies how Trump’s policies are not clearly thought out completely as his solutions create other problems.
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Two more men have been murdered at the hands of hysteria caused by rumors which have trickled out to Indian society. The rumors that lead to the deaths of two young men were false statements regarding child kidnappers. These rumors have spread through WhatsApp, a free messaging service for smartphones. The two men were beaten to death by a large crowd when the two had stopped to ask for directions in north-eastern Assam state. A viral video posted online which contains the beating of the two men. The locals had fallen prey to insidious rumors about child kidnappers and beat the two men to death because they were unfamiliar. The Assam State has stated that it is aggressively trying to combat the spread of rumors to prevent hysteria from sweeping through the streets.
I chose this article because it in many ways expands on the topics we have discussed in the first week of class. For example, this article contains a prime example of the importance of skepticism. Skepticism keeps individuals from blindly believing rumors surrounding them, and if the people who beat the two men to death had questioned the rumors of child abduction, perhaps, they would have not fallen prey to rumors and created hysteria that lead to the two men losing their lives. Those who do not question information provided to them fall prey to ignorance, for they may have knowledge on a subject, but the information may be totally false leading them to not understand a subject. Vigilantism is a dark path that some individuals find themselves walking on, and often vigilantism is found to be pure hypocrisy. The mob that beat the two men to death thought that they would be doing society a favor and enacting justice, however by bypassing the law these people murdered two innocent people.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44435127
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https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15449959
Only negative things were mentioned when people talk about the World Population Day, such as overpopulation causes resource consumption, lack of water, climate change, etc. Most people think the best way for population control is though birth control, epically for the poor people. That way they will have a smaller family size and less financial stress. In this article, the author Mike Gallagher brought up an innovative thought that population control might be a tool from the rich to control the poor. I agree with Mike’s point of view that no matter the poverty or splendor, population control is the mission of all human race,
This week’s class we learned about critical thinking, and helped me to have deep thinking about population control.
first of all, if your country want to be rich, that have to solve the problem of population control, not just the fertility rate, but also the population aging, (This is also one of the reasons for the shrinking social security in the United States.). Second, giving anyone who needs, whether it is a woman or a man, is important for them to receive a education than to give them money. They will make choices that are beneficial to society. Finally, do not simply negate the excess population growth. In fact, a sufficient population can bring about the advantage of scale, which is conducive to economic development and technological progress. Of course, population growth has both advantages and disadvantages, but as long as it is handled properly, the problem can be overcome.
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http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/23/technology/elon-musk-media/index.html
An article by CNN tells about the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, and his talks about creating a platform that rates the credibility of journalists and news outlets. Musk states that the site may be called “Pravda”, which shares the same name as a business ran by an affiliate of his. However, there is concern that the platform can be used to sway public opinion in Musk’s favor. Some experts agree that the idea may work if the organization was operated by an independent, unbiased company. This idea came about in recent accusations of the “dishonest” news about the faults of Musk’s company, Tesla.
I chose this article because the idea of a reading service for news outlets sounds conflicting to me. Personally, I believe that people should always check their facts with multiple sources and never trust a single outlet. However, it would be beneficial to society if we could collectively agree on which journalist are biased or unbiased, pushing their own agenda, or selling a product. This type of service causes the public to choose sides by shutting out journalists it does not agree with. In addition, it would be extremely popular amongst most students considering how frequent companies like Yelp are used. These websites can be damaging because they cause the public to have an opinion on a service before they use it. Depending on how you look at it, Elon Musk’s idea to create a “Rate My Journalist” can damage or repair the state of the media.
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http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/23/technology/elon-musk-media/index.html
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http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/23/technology/elon-musk-media/index.html
An article by CNN tells about the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, and his talks about creating a platform that rates the credibility of journalists and news outlets. Musk states that the site may be called “Pravda”, which shares the same name as a business ran by an affiliate of his. However, there is concern that the platform can be used to sway public opinion in Musk’s favor. Some experts agree that the idea may work if the organization was operated by an independent, unbiased company. This idea came about in recent accusations of the “dishonest” news about the faults of Musk’s company, Tesla.
I chose this article because the idea of a reading service for news outlets sounds conflicting to me. Personally, I believe that people should always check their facts with multiple sources and never trust a single outlet. However, it would be beneficial to society if we could collectively agree on which journalist are biased or unbiased, pushing their own agenda, or selling a product. This type of service causes the public to choose sides by shutting out journalists it does not agree with. Furthermore, it would be extremely popular amongst most students considering how frequent companies like Yelp are used. These websites cause the public to have an opinion on a service before they use it. Depending on how you look at it, Elon Musk’s idea to create a “Rate My Journalist” can damage or repair the state of the media.
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Link: http://time.com/4388565/zero-population-growth-world-population-day-2016/
This article, written by Olivia B. Waxman, discusses the topic of population control, but not population control itself; it discusses why the conversation about population control in the US has died down in the past half century. Back in the late 60’s and throughout the 70’s, population control was a hot topic that Americans could not seem to shake from the back of their minds. The American people already knew the answer was ZPG, or zero population growth. ZPG is limiting the number of children each nuclear family could have. In fact, the exact number was 2.1 children per family, which would, as the name implies, keep the total population growth of the US at a steady zero. Although the answer was simple, it was still ridden with controversy over controlling the number of children Americans could have in their society of freedom. Paul Elrich wrote about ZPG in 1968 in his book The Population Bomb. His book gained nationwide attention to the point that the US president, Richard Nixon at the time, addressed it in a presidential speech to Congress as an issue needing to be acted upon soon. As a result, the government created the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future. Even though the issue brought a lot of fear in the 70’s, population growth in the US today is actually at a decline. Since the 70’s, US families have kept their average amount of children at about two, and the general population used contraception a lot more when it was legalized. Even though Elrich helped prevent uncontrolled population growth in the United States, other countries, such as India, are having the same problems and dangers the US did in the 70’s. His work can still be used to help those other countries in need. In my opinion, Erich did the United States a great service by calling an unforeseen problem to the forefront of America. He helped prevent what may have been a catastrophic disaster in later years of American history. Even now, his advice and concerns can be used, as previously mentioned, to help neighboring or far out nations. This article relates to the class topic of 2BR02B because of the issue of population control presented in the short story.
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